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Source: Simon & Schuster / Simon and Schuster

SLAY

Brittney Morris

Publication date: September 24

With a title like Slay, you might think it follows a teenager who’s into fashion or beauty. But this story follows 17-year-old Keira Johnson, an honors student and a math tutor at Jefferson Academy. When she goes home, she joins a community of other Black gamers. According to the press release, “No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the ‘downfall of the Black man.’ But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals, and an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.” Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?